Perfect Match
by Anya Maygo
Summary: A girl hunting for acceptance when her differences leave her wandering nearly alone, she finds love in a most unlikely spot. (Maybe this will get dumbed down in its rating, maybe it'll go up; I'm still working on it.) Kid-to-newgirl pairing
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

* * *

_**Hi. My name is Emiko. I'm a special weapon, a girl who can turn into a rope javelin. My meister, Hotaru Tsukiko, is also a weapon; she turns into a katana. We'd ended up paired with each other instead of typical meisters because Hotaru's personality didn't match up with any of those technically in the running well enough to cooperate with them – she can be kind of demanding sometimes. As for me…I had another ability.**_

_**I can also turn into a skunk. That's right, a skunk.**_

_**And because of that, not many wanted to be around me. Hotaru was the only person who knew what I could do and didn't care, besides Lord Death himself of course.**_

_**We take turns wielding each other in battle against evil people whose souls have turned into kishin eggs. Because we're both weapons, we need to collect twice as many evil souls as anyone else in school. Our track record for successful collection is…low. Part of that is the way our personalities mesh…or don't, as the case may be. My weapon form is assist/defensive: rather hard to kill anyone with it. As for the other way around…I shy back from rushing into battle, so I'm still awkward at using a blade.**_

_**And so that's where we were, sitting in class…**_

* * *

Mister Death Scythe came into the classroom and tried to impress us. I glanced over at Hotaru. As far as any boy was concerned she was impressive to look at, in a leather jacket that made her long silver hair seem to shine brighter.

She glanced right back at me, her red eyes piercing my deep black ones. "Does he always have this attitude?" she whispered.

"I don't know," I whispered back, "but if he says anything that makes me uncomfortable, I'm skunking out of here."

A smirk pulled at the corner of her mouth, and she offered up her fist. I lightly tapped it with my own and returned my attention to the substitute teacher.

* * *

_**Hm? What do **_**I**_** look like normally? Ah…well, I mentioned my eyes. As to everything else, I've got fair skin and my wardrobe doesn't particularly stand out in a crowd. My hair is black…with a white V-shape that starts right on my forehead and shoots down the whole length of my hair. Hotaru had checked: the white hairs grow from my scalp all through that V-shape. I almost never bind my hair into a ponytail because of that coloration: no sense in looking more like a skunk than I already do.**_

* * *

"All right then! Let's take attendance."

_Huh? Didn't he say earlier that he wasn't taking roll?_

Soul called him on that – yeah, I knew who Soul was, but I didn't talk to him much. He creeped me out a little with those teeth.

"I'm not going to take attendance on the guys, but I think I'll take attendance for all the ladies."

_That's it. I'm leaving._

I slid down in my seat until I vanished under my desk and morphed. Then I fell off my chair and waddled as quietly as I could – and as quickly as I could without attracting attention – towards the door. Then Death Scythe excused Soul and Maka from class, saying that Lord Death wanted to see them.

I took advantage of the fact that they were heading for the door and slipped out practically right under their feet.

_I can't believe I'm playing hooky from class!_ I morphed back as soon as they left my line of sight and took off running. Death Scythe had immediately hit me as a pervert or a player or both, and one would think he'd know better than to try to use his "skills" on impressionable minds inside bodies that were way too young for those games!

"So…" I said aloud once I'd stopped on a balcony and caught my breath, "what shall I do with myself until the bell?"

* * *

What I ended up doing was finding a stick about the same length as Hotaru's katana form and practicing fighting moves against a tree.

Well, okay, I should be honest: my form with a blade had gotten to be flawless. What I was actually working on was building some aggression. I needed to be bold if I was to gain any souls. So far, every soul we'd collected has gone to Hotaru, because of her ingenuity in getting a rope javelin to kill somebody.

Our current amassed total of souls is…

_Hotaru: 17_

_Emiko: 1_

And that one was Hotaru being nice and saying I needed to get at least one for credit.

But I _would_ become a Death Scythe, a weapon that Lord Death would feel was worth using!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

* * *

**Emiko**

The next day, I was astonished to see our new teacher, Professor Stein, come rolling in backwards on a rolling chair, trip on the doorjamb, spin across the floor and then start the lesson while just lying there!

"We're gonna start by dissecting some frogs, it's sure to be fun."

I set my head on the desk. "Oh, please, no, it'll take all my effort not to go skunk and eat the stupid thing."

No, this wasn't an idle remark. The last time I'd come across a dead animal in my backyard, that's _exactly_ what had happened. That one had been a snake. I'd felt sick all the rest of the day, thinking about what I'd done.

I was starting to feel kind of sick now, just remembering it. I raised my hand. "Request permission to be excused?"

His gaze locked on me. "Hm? You're…Emiko, right?" At my nod, he stood up and studied me…_very_ intensely. It was like he was looking right into my soul.

Which, knowing what I do of his reputation, he probably was.

"Very well, you may be excused, provided you come see me after class is over."

I'd stood up and started for the door when he finished his sentence. Then I stopped short. "Sir?"

"You still have to finish the assignment."

_Oh. Drat._

I slipped out, positioned myself next to the door and waited for the bell.

* * *

Finally, the bell rang…too soon. My classmates filed out past me. I couldn't help but notice pitying looks from Black Star and Tsubaki. Then Soul glanced at me. "Good luck, Emiko. You're going to need it: Stein's one sadistic dude."

I shivered. Then I slipped in.

Professor Stein was fussing with the giant screw through his head. He turned as I shut the door behind me. Then he gave me that penetrating look again.

"Sir…I'm ready for…for the lesson." I'd had to stop in the middle of that sentence to gulp, remembering the frogs.

"Your soul went chaotic just now."

"Huh?" I stiffened.

"Your soul, in my opinion anyway, seems composed of two sides. One is quiet, mild-mannered and a little nervous in front of others. The other side is far more confident, always alert to any sign of danger, and…" a wry smirk twitched onto his face, "…possesses a strange hunger for…frogs?"

I gulped, starting to feel a little queasy again. _Drat you. Soul's right, you _are_ sadistic._

"And there's that chaotic twinge again."

I glared at him, letting my anger burn away my nausea. "Please, sir…don't make me spray you."

His eyebrows shot up. "Now there's an interesting warning." And then Professor Stein's eyes roved up to my hair. "Is that a hint?"

I sighed. "Only about half the school knows the truth that I'm aware of. The other half no doubt has been told. It's an open secret. I'm a weapon that has two forms: a rope javelin…" I started fussing with my hair, closing my eyes.

Stein finished the sentence. "…And a skunk."

"It's why I had to excuse myself from the…the dissection. I've…eaten…dead animals before. It's probably the one animal instinct I have: find something a skunk would consider food, morph into the skunk, down the hatch." I shuddered again. "The human side of me is appalled that I would do that, but the skunk…"

A hand fell on my shoulder.

My eyes snapped open and I stared up at him. I hadn't been about to let him touch me after that remark of Soul's, but it didn't seem polite to smack his hand away.

"You have nothing to be ashamed of. Your soul is still quite sound, and that's all that matters."

I nodded carefully. "Thank you." Then I cocked an eyebrow at him. "I'd still rather not do the dissection – I don't want to spoil my lunch."

He laughed. It was unnerving, but I managed to grin back at him.

"I'll mark your name down for completion of that assignment, as long as you answer me one thing."

I blinked up at him, uneasy.

"Have you actually eaten a frog?"

I squeezed my eyes shut. "Yes." _Don't remind me._

"Then you have already done the assignment." He stepped back, picked up the name board and marked something on it. Then he blinked at me as if surprised I was still here. "Well, go on then! Class dismissed!"

"Thank you, sir!" I turned tail and ran out the door, glad that human legs could cover far more ground than a skunk's.

* * *

**A/N: This is mostly insight to what Emiko's like as a skunk. The next chapter's actually going to have some plot to it.**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

* * *

**Hotaru**

"What should our class be today? I know, why don't we do another dissection lab?"

I glanced at Emiko, who'd just banged her head on the desk. _Does he like tormenting my partner or what?_ Yeah, I knew about her little roadkill-cuisine problem, I was probably one of the very small number who did.

And learning that it was a bird didn't help much.

Emiko raised her hand. "Sir, I'd like to be excused. I've already…done this assignment."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "You've dissected a rare cuckoo?" He sounded amused. I figured that he was among the very few now in the know about…that issue.

She shrugged. "No, but when you've dissected one bird, you've kind of dissected them all. There's hardly any structural difference." And she threw such an odd accent into her voice, I couldn't tell if she'd really said "dissected" or if she'd actually said "digested."

And judging by Professor Stein's smirk, he caught that. "Very well, you may go find Soul and Black Star. Perhaps they're doing something you can relieve them of so that they can come to class."

_That excuse of hers works every time. I wish I had such a ready excuse on hand._

* * *

**Emiko**

I slipped out of my seat. As I was passing him, though, he caught a handful of my hair, making me stop. "And by the way, there will be a new student joining our class today." Then he let go and allowed me to continue out the door.

_A new student?_

I ran for the front door. I got there just in time to witness chaos.

The new guy was on the floor screaming something about numbers and symmetry at Soul, who was just lounging next to a pillar. Two girls, probably his weapons, were watching this party with different degrees of amusement.

"Um…dude, is there something wrong with you?"

"Yes," the taller girl answered while the shorter laughed, "he's absolutely insane."

I started snickering myself. Then my head-banging moment came up – Black Star started yelling from his vantage point of one of the points sticking out of the building. I never did have any guesses at how he got to places like that.

And then the taller girl called the boy "Kid." Hm…that could either be patronizing…or…

I cocked my head and studied what little I could see of him at this angle. _Could this be Death the Kid, Lord Death's son?_

Upon Black Star arriving on ground level via breaking platform, I settled into my skunk form and waddled behind a pillar proper. I couldn't watch; if Kid was really this into symmetry, and I'd subconsciously noticed that the building was symmetrical until that moment of course, then Kid was about to go nuclear on Black Star.

My ears told me the story.

Sure enough, Kid chose to fight. His weapons were named Liz and Patty, though I'm not sure which is which yet.

Then there was true chaos to my ears: guns blazing and a lot of shouting.

* * *

Readers, I need to confess something to you.

I. Hate. Black Star.

I hate him with a passion. He doesn't believe in the existence of a sun, he thinks the world revolves around _him!_ He thinks that _he_ is the only person worthy of every ounce of attention! Plus, he's a complete moron with almost no skills!

* * *

Maka, Tsubaki and Professor Stein came up behind me, though just enough off-kilter from my position to watch the fight.

The worst part of the fight was when Black Star actually tried to wield Soul as a scythe. To say it didn't work out…would be an understatement.

I only came out when some extreme power started to appear from Kid. I…couldn't_ see_ souls, exactly…not in human form. But for some reason, when I was a skunk, I could sense them. A glowing sphere formed around Kid, and then spikes formed on his upper arms and his pistols turned into arm-cannons!

And the power in that shot – I would have been very surprised if those two idiots were still there.

Tsubaki ran out screaming worry for Black Star. I morphed back, but I didn't fully come out of the shadows. It was simply that I was shy.

Then suddenly, Kid collapsed! His weapons morphed back and the shorter one remarked, "Aye-aye-aye!" She sounded almost resigned.

_What happened?_

Apparently it was a little cut…to his hairstyle.

Imagine my eyebrow twitching as I try to hold back my combined amusement and disgust.

When Lord Death himself appeared on the scene…I was just glad it was only to take Kid home. Though…his parting shot straight to me had me wondering.

"And Emiko, you really ought to consider properly introducing yourself to my boy. I think you'll get along fabulously!"

I ran my fingers through my hair. _What in the world did he mean by that?_

"Hey, Emiko, we've got a job to do, remember?"

I turned around. Hotaru had stolen up behind me.

"School. Right. And are we still going for them tonight?" _Them_ being a couple of corrupt souls inside some old ladies. I was personally amazed that they'd gone for so long without normal people noticing. They took the souls of children.

"Yup."

* * *

That night, we set out. I was riding as a rope dagger, and she was roller-blading.

"_**So we do have a plan, right? The usual, or are we going to try to have me actually take this one?**_"

"I don't know…every time _you've_ tried to take the soul, we lose the element of surprise, you lose your nerve and I have to try harder to take down our target. And _this_ time, we've got more than one to collect."

"_**I've gotten better, really. Still…you're right. You take the first, and…how many are there?**_"

"Two, I think."

"_**Okay, you take the first by stealth, and I take the second.**_"

She vaulted onto a rooftop – I never did figure out how she could do that with roller blades – and slipped into the attic of our target's house. Then, belly-down, she crept to the hatch and levered it up, peeking in.

"_**These ladies lure kids to the house with candy, right? You think we can take some home with us after we clear them out?**_"

"You're such a sugar addict…but sure."

"_**Hey, I need sugar around in case I end up eating carrion again, so sue me!**_"

"Sssh!"

One of our targets was approaching the vicinity of the hatch.

Hotaru unwound me and let a loop of the cord slowly ease downwards through the hatch. Slowly…slowly…

Then she looped the cord around the target's neck, one circle to keep from losing it, and heaved with both ends in one hand, transforming her other arm into a blade in the same movement.

There was barely any time to register the lady's look of shock before Hotaru spun on her knees somehow, letting her blade-arm cut just below my cord. Head and body detonated harmlessly and the egg dropped to the floor below.

"Drat," Hotaru put away her blade. "Well, we'll have to go down there now anyway. Sooner or later, we'll have to perfect that move so that we _don't_ drop the egg."

"_**Another day, Hotaru. Come on, drop me!**_"

Hotaru lowered me until the point of my blade was touching the floor. This was what I'd meant by drop. Once the point touched, she let go and I morphed back to human. Then she jumped through the hatch herself, morphing into a katana that I caught easily by the hilt.

Then it was my turn to play stealth. Carefully I crept around the house, leaving the egg where it was. Kishin-soul people tended to ignore those eggs for some reason.

Finally I heard the sounds I was waiting for: the clink of dishes moving around. I peeked into the kitchen to note where my target was.

And that was when I nearly had a heart attack – it hadn't been two after all.

It was _three._ There was also an old man at the table.

I tilted the blade so that Hotaru could see the reflection of the old man. "It would have been nice to know about _him_!" I hissed.

"_**Oops. Sorry about that. I forgot him. No, he's not a witch, but he pulls the strings of the other two. He's the oldest out of the three of them.**_"

I could feel my nerve slipping away at the thought of having to take on two opponents, and never mind that they were old – I've _seen_ what a kishin soul could do, and a body didn't seem to make much difference!

"_**Come on, don't fail on me now!**_" Then she fell silent again. My guess: she was coming up with some new idea to get me to move and take these two down.

"Well?"

"_**Um…well, you remember the candy, right?**_"

"Yeah?..."

"_**Pretend you'd just eaten a dead rat, and those two are keeping you away from that candy.**_"

I hesitated a little longer. I could feel my determination rising, but it wasn't quite high enough…

"_**Oh yeah – did I mention that this dead rat came with an appetizer of live worms? Real ones, and not the gummy type?**_"

That did it. I bared my teeth in an outright snarl and spun around the doorway, lifting Hotaru high above my head one-handed.

They both turned in surprise. And then the old man bared his own teeth, which were sharper than normal. "_What do we have here?_"

"Your souls have turned into kishin eggs and I'm here to claim them!" My other arm whipped towards the chandelier, morphing into my rope dagger and grabbing hold of the thing. Then I heaved myself off the floor and spun around the room – literally spun, I was twirling around in circles while I rotated on the chandelier itself.

I think the only reason that that move worked was because the old woman was too surprised at my unorthodox technique to move out of the way of the katana blade – she too ended up beheaded. Then I let go of the chandelier, impacted the far wall with my feet, bent my knees to allow for my momentum, and looked up.

With my still-rotating vision I saw the old man lunging for me. I gripped Hotaru's hilt with both hands, aimed and shoved off the wall. The blade went all the way through him, and Hotaru and I fell to the floor.

* * *

Hotaru turned back; being a weapon had helped her maintain her equilibrium while I'd been spinning. I lay there on the floor a bit longer, trying to get my head straight.

When I opened my eyes again, Hotaru was standing there with all three eggs and a suitcase that was presumably full of candy. "This suitcase was all I could find. At least it has wheels."

I stood up. "So how do we divide it this time?"

She looked at the three red orbs in her hand with an odd look on her face. Then she returned her gaze to me. "You get two, Skunky. You earned them."

I stared in wonder. This was the first time I'd actually _earned_ a soul, and it was two at once! Then I took the souls from her. "You first, since you're taking us home in the first place."

Hotaru jumped up and turned into a katana again. I caught her, and a slot opened in her hilt. This was how she took in kishin eggs. I placed hers in, and she morphed back again. The way I took kishin eggs was far simpler. Yes, I eat the souls like Soul presumably does – I've never seen him – but I do so like a skunk. And I did this time, climbing onto the table to do so. And from skunk, I just went straight to rope dagger. This wasn't actually a stretch – my rope dagger form had my skunk tail as a decoration hanging from the dagger end.

Hotaru picked me up, tied the dagger end to the suitcase handle and bound the rest of me around her waist. Then we went out the back door and were gone.

"_**You want to split up the candy when we get home, or wait until morning?**_"

"And you're back to the candy. Wait until morning, okay?"

"_**Fine.**_" I'd been teasing. I felt awesome! It would be a long time before I got to sleep.


End file.
